Recovering Evangelicals

For some, the Bible takes on a deeper meaning when you read it less literally … exchanging certainty and rigidity for the fluidity of symbology, metaphor, and mysticism. If there’s one characteristic that sets Christian Fundamentalists apart from other forms of Christianity, it’s an over zealous commitment to a literal reading of the Bible.  Exaggeration, embellishment, hyperbole, and wordplay are all part of daily conversation, but Fundies seem to think these have no place when it comes to the writing, reading and interpretation of scripture.  Just think Young Earth Creationism and the Chicago statement on Biblical Inerrancy. Today we talk to someone from the other end of the Christian spectrum, one who grew up in a Roman Catholic environment, spent the first 20 years of his life as a Baptist, but was eventually drawn into the Eastern Orthodox tradition.  In fact, he has carved a career out of symbolism.  Jonathan Pageau is a world-recognized sculptor from Montreal Quebec, who has devoted his talent to Eastern Orthodox iconography; he often speaks on that art form and on that Christian perspective.  In our conversation with him, we talked about: mysticism is missing from much of evangelical practice, even though it was practised by the earliest Christian fathers and leaders …. “read the gospel of John for goodness sake!” there is a long history of mysticism in early Christianity reason vs symbolism, and their roles in the spiritual experience deep familiarity with Roman Catholicism, Protestantism (Baptist), Evangelical youth culture in his 20s, Jonathan went to college, which led to reading books and exploring questions that eventually drew him to the world of Eastern Orthodox faith and its art (first painting, then later iconography) iconography is a powerful language … tries to capture patterns, resonances all around us (in daily life … in science … in the Bible) iconography is a visual language …. universal …. developed very early in Christianity Jonathan exchanged the certainty and rigidness of Evangelical religion for a more fluid, symbolic form in Eastern Orthodoxy Jesus always taught in parables, rather than literal didactic sermonizing … very symbolic and metaphorical teleological language is every where in scientific discussion also see this in the secular world: Star Wars, Marvel Universe, Burning Man are drenched in symbolism and imagery; devotees of things like these are [unconsciously] exploring religious themes … maybe even Christian themes …. they are being liturgical Tolkien, allegory, eucatastrophe, and “True Myth” Christ and the self-sacrificial motif, which is also employed in all kinds of stories, movies, songs we asked if, having left a literal, rigid, Evangelical world for a symbolic Eastern Orthodox perspective, does Jonathan now find the Bible becomes more real when you take it more metaphorically in the world of science and math, Logical Positivists thought they could reduce reality to numbers and equations, and take meaning out of reality…. but they couldn’t!   They found language and symbology to be more effective Western society has tried several times to remove religion from our world/reality, and the result has not been good, sometimes even disastrous (French Revolution; Communism).  Today, the Enlightenment has played itself out, and left us empty.  Now we see religion coming crashing down on us in the form of Woke Culture … bending truth, twisting meaning and reality …. some things you can’t say because they’re “sacrilegious.” As always, tell us what you think (comment below, or in our private Facebook Discussion group) … Find more information about Jonathan Pageau at his website and at his YouTube channel. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like our previous conversation with Dr. Louis Markos about literature, mythology, and Jesus as “the True Myth,” or the one with Dr. Seth Hart about how scientists can’t avoid injecting purpose and meaning in their descriptions of science, including evolutionary biology. Episode image by permission. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

A northern Irish philosopher (who grew up in the 30-year war between “Protestants” and “Catholics”) gives us a whole new perspective on this ancient religion. This week, we’ll hear from a very thought-provoking philosopher — Dr. Peter Rollins — who we guarantee will have you thinking about Christian faith in entirely new ways. Peter grew up in Ireland during “the Troubles” …. a 30 year conflict between “Catholics” and “Protestants,” marked by bombings and brutally vicious killings. At that time, identity became weaponized (much as we see happening today). Nihilism triggered a fundamental rupture of his worldview, and the resulting cognitive crisis led Peter into religion and religious studies. His academic studies “broke [him] in the best possible way.” He’s “not a confessional Christian” (he doesn’t define himself along a set of doctrines and beliefs). Instead, he’s interested in “different modes of being” and is drawn to the Christian mode of being: “Christianity is the insight that there is a fundamental antagonism, assymetry or lack at the heart of everything, and the universe is fundamentally incomplete, fundamentally contradictory. The cure is the ability and the courage to embrace this contradiction at the heart of everything.” In our conversation with him, we spent about ten minutes on each the following five main themes: (1) Christianity: the contradictions and incompleteness inherent in the universe and experienced reality, and how that frustrates the insatiable desire of humans to fill an inner void through money, love, power, sex, knowledge …. or even religious faith.  But all of these will fail. Christianity is unique among other faiths in having a belief in the death of God and a self-divided absolute: this frees us from the pursuit of trying to be happy, whole and complete.  Hegel provided a whole new perspective on Christ’s cry: “My God, why have you forsaken me?”  Philosophers thought they could find certainty in mathematics, but even there they found contradictions and paradoxes. (2) God: Supreme Being?  Beyond being?  Ground of being?  Event?  Anselm: God is that which none greater can be conceived.  The mystics (Eckhart): God is the name for that which cannot be conceived.  Existential thinkers (Tillich): that which you cannot objectify, but is present in the rationale behind truth and reality.  Karl Barth and the numinous.  Kant versus Hegel.  Kierkegaard versus Hegel (or Hegelians).  Roger Penrose: quantum indeterminacy and proto-consciousness.  Transcendence and immanence.  Jacques Derrida: deconstructing words and ideas. (3) God-is-dead theology. The notion of the death of God actually began with the Apostle Paul, who saw this notion as essential for salvation.  Luther, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Freud all built on this idea.  We also talked about one of Rollin’s latest projects: “Pyrotheology” (the inspiration for this name came from Spanish anarchist Buenaventura Durruti, who once said that “the only church that illuminates is a burning church”). (4) the Bible, and Divine Inspiration.  Rollins puts a new spin on inerrancy and infallibility: we have to treat the Bible as real and “literally” true in the same way that a psychoanalyst needs to take their patient’s dreams as real and literal before looking for the true meaning deep down.  We need to take the words, images, ideas as absolute truth, and then begin to parse and deconstruct them. (5) Christ.  The paradox of his humanity and divinity.  Tertullian: I believe in the crucifixion because it’s absurd.  Hegel and the monstrosity of Christ.  The historical Jesus versus “the Christ.”  The paradox of the incarnation (and resurrection) within a first century Hellenic Greek context (which saw the body as evil, and the spirit as good). Find more information about Dr. Peter Rollins at his website and at his YouTube channel. Episode image by permission. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

An experimental psychologist and a theologian with a PhD in psychology give us their perspectives on the emotion of awe and its role in the spiritual/religious experience. Last week, we explained why we decided to look more closely at the emotion of awe and its role in the spiritual / religious experience, as well as how scientists measure this emotion (external physiological and behavioral changes; internal changes in emotion, perception).  We also heard a personal story of someone whose life was altered dramatically by his experiences during a solar eclipse. This week, we talked to two scholars, one of them an experimental psychologist (Dr. Justin Barrett), and the other a theologian with PhD training in psychology (Dr. Kutter Callaway).  Our conversation with them covered a lot of diverse territory: the distinct overlap between the experiences had by a non-religious person during a solar eclipse, and a new religious convert having a “born-again” experience during a church revival rally Emmanuel Kant, the sublime, the numinous awe can be measured/experienced in six dimensions: altered time perception sense of self diminishing sense of connectedness beyond the self (to people, the university, …. or deity) sense of vastness physical sensations like goosebumps need for accommodation awe can be mixed with other emotions which modify the experience and give it a positive or negative impact … with fear (it’s not just overwhelming …. can also be scary, terrifying) … with affection … with surprise … joy awe falls under the umbrella of “positive psychology” (some people might think psychologists only look at dysfunction like depression or schizophrenia), and thus can promote well-being at the individual and societal levels awe can have impact on social dominance orientation (aka, racism), and can be manipulated when presenting an ideology (protests, rallies) can animals experience awe (given that some species seem to experience happiness, sadness, grief, gratitude)? if this is a uniquely human thing, why did humans evolve this complex response (or why were we given it)? is it “just” an evolutionary spandrel (one of the triangular spaces between two arches in a cathedral) or “exaptation” (in other words, is it an accidental by-product)? Gobekli Tepe, the world’s oldest temple, has massive anthropoid monoliths which, when struck with your palm, emit an eerie moan or gong sound: experiencing this during dim lighting, burning incense, animal sacrifices must have been an incredibly awe-inducing experience!  Such an experience could unite the group, draw them closer, make them feel like they were led and protected by a supernatural being … all of these outcomes would confer an evolutionary advantage if/when the group faced an external threat does awe play into spiritual/religious experiences today?  We talked specifically about people who deconvert but still want to be “spiritual-but-not-religious,“ as well as proponents/adherents of Intelligent Design ideology humans are inclined to seeing purpose and agency, because of two peculiar cognitive processes (“software”) that have evolved in the human brain: the “promiscuous teleology” and “hypersensitive agency” detection systems. As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … Find out more about Dr. Kutter Callaway at his personal web-page or faculty web-page. Learn more about Dr. Justin Barrett at the web-page for his new professional outlet … Blueprint 1543 … as well as to a video library in which he explains a variety of aspects of cognitive anthropology. If you enjoyed this episode, you might also enjoy our previous episode with Dr. Justin Barrett, in which we talked at length about the “promiscuous teleology” and “hypersensitive agency detection” systems in human evolution, or our episode with Dr. Seth Hart addressing how even atheists cannot avoid invoking teleology (purpose, design, directedness) when speaking about biology (a prime example of the promiscuous teleology detection system?).  Or check out our collection of episodes which focus specifically on the religious experience and spiritual encounters. Episode image by Memory Catcher from Pixabay. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

After a quick primer on this uniquely human phenomenon, we’ll hear from someone who had a profound, life-changing experience during a solar eclipse, and then relate all of this to religious/spiritual experiences. Humans seem to be unique among all other species on Earth when it comes to the emotion of awe.  Whether it’s experienced while standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon, staring up at Niagara Falls from the bow of the Maid of the Mist, looking at Earth while doing a space-walk outside the International Space Station, or physically bumping into Taylor Swift getting out of her limo, awe evokes a physical response: you might gasp, start breathing faster, your heart races, you get goosebumps on your arms and the hairs on your neck start to rise.  You’ll also experience cognitive changes: you suddenly feel small, or that your very being begins to dissolve …. you might suddenly feel more connected to humanity, to nature, to the universe … or to Deity. Psychologists and anthropologists are now paying a lot more attention to the emotion of awe.  It seems to be important to a greater sense of well-being.  And it might be an important part of a spiritual/religious experience. Next week, we’re going to hear from an experimental psychologist and a theologian about that last point.  But in this episode, we thought we should first give a bit of background on this uniquely human emotion (many animals seem to experience joy, rage, fear, sadness/grief, curiosity …. but not awe!?). And we wanted to give you a prime example of a personally profound awe-experience.  Before witnessing a solar eclipse a couple decades ago, David Makepeace really had no religious/spiritual inclinations whatsoever.  After encountering one, though, his life was changed: his relationship with the universe became personal, and existentially compelling.  He found a reason … a purpose … for his existence on this planet at this time.  He now understood what Carl Sagan meant about humans being a way for the universe to know itself.  And he now has a greater sense of happiness, fulfillment … even gratitude.  My words won’t do justice to his story as he tells it: you need to hear it from him.  And I guarantee you’ll find it provocative; it will definitely make you think. And ask questions. One of the questions Scott and I asked ourselves was: how is David’s experience different from a typical spiritual/religious experience that one might have at a revivalist church meeting?  There is so much overlap with respect to the physical, cognitive, and emotional responses. Both result in a complete reorientation of one’s place in “the big picture.”  In fact, David’s enhanced sense of being a conduit for the consciousness of the universe sounds quite a bit like some newer forms of Christian theology — Open Theology and Process Theology — which claim that God experiences history and time along with us as life happens and we make choices (that he’s not omniscient). Let us know what you think. Find more information about David Makepeace, including contact info, upcoming appearances, and a number of “awesome” videos at his personal webpage and his business webpage. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like our previous episodes looking at the brain software that equips humans to having spiritual/religious experiences (episodes #43, #44, #45, and #78), or our episode on Open Theology and Process Theology. Episode image by fe31lopz at Pixabay. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive.

Many Christians can fully accept the idea of human evolution, but they use a language which betrays Young Earth Creationism. If we don’t update our language, we may lose a whole generation of Christians. Many Christians are perfectly fine with human evolution: descent over millions of years down a family tree we share in common with the chimpanzees and orangutans on the one hand, and with Neanderthals and Denisovans on the other.  And yet they still use language that is rooted in Young Earth Creationism: referring to people as “fallen creatures” or “broken image bearers,” or saying that we need to be reconciled to God, or “we need to get back to the garden.”  These terms, and others, lose their meaning in a worldview that sees humans evolving up the evolutionary ladder.  More importantly, these terms force certain theological views and assumptions that might be problematic for making progress in the evolution of our theology (yes, Christianity has been evolving for 2000 years!).  For example, moving away from the Biblical belief that mental disease is caused by demons, and towards the modern scientific understanding that the cause is more related to neurochemical imbalances and neuronal damage, will lead to better treatment of the problem. Our guest today — Dr. Andrew Torrance, from the University of St. Andrew’s, Scotland — helped us through this discussion. We first talked about the words “creation” and “evolution.”  Too often, these terms are used and understood to be in diametrically opposed conflict: “creation versus evolution.”  These don’t have to be either/or …. they can be both/and.  God can create using evolution.  We looked at how the Creation accounts in Genesis themselves use evolutionary language: the plants and animals didn’t pop into existence out of thin air … Genesis says “the land produced” them. To get around the perceived problem between creation and evolution, some Christians feel the need to refer to “theistic evolution,” rather than just “evolution” as scientists understand the word.  But we don’t refer to theistic combustion, or theistic erosion, so why do so here with evolution?  It seems the big concern is the random or unguided aspect of evolution: they want God to have control, sovereignty.  They need him to intervene in certain places; to bridge the gaps.  Not only does this become God-of-the-gaps thinking, but it also starts to sound an awful lot like Intelligent Design, both of which we at this podcast have long ago considered and rejected. Next, we talked about the terminology used to describe the origin of humans, particularly the trajectory implied within that terminology.   On the one hand, all explanations which try to keep the Biblical accounts in view have humans starting from an elevated position: biologically and cognitively, they’re created in the image of God; morally, they’re sinless; theologically and spiritually, they’re in complete harmony with God.  But very quickly, according to those Biblically-based explanations, we lost that preferred status. The “Fall in the Garden.” Explanations that rest more heavily on science, on the other hand, show the opposite trajectory: humans started off from a lower position, and have been climbing up the evolutionary ladder in all these respects.  Biologically and cognitively, we came from simple life forms and up through the primate tree, and have been developing morally and philosophically along the way.  At the same time, we’ve been growing theologically and spiritually: we came from life forms that had no concept of God whatsoever, and have been creating temples and religions in our tireless quest for the divine. We didn’t rebel against God, or hide from him: we’ve always been searching for him.  Christ’s appearance in human history marks a major inflection point in that upward journey. Critics of this new worldview always point to recent wars, and the dropping of nuclear bombs.  Those critics don’t seem to realize that the same kind of argument works against Christianity (now pointing to the  Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, and the abuse and genocide of indigenous people groups).  Those critics also have too short a timeline in view: human progress shouldn’t be measured over 50 years, but over 50,000 years.  In that more distant past, humans weren’t launching disaster relief efforts, or building schools and hospitals, or working to abolish slavery and economic inequalities.  They weren’t protesting against wars, the subjugation of women, or racial discrimination.  Our progress through these sociological issues may be too slow for some, but these are moral values that are now in our social consciousness when they weren’t in our heads even just a few thousand years ago. This new worldview also better explains the theological concept of original sin. The Young Earth worldview tends to point to actions (biting into “an apple”, or lying, stealing, lusting, hating, etc.) and inheriting some kind of spiritual disease. But the Hebrew and Greek words used for “sin” in the Bible are both taken from archery, and literally mean “to miss the mark,” in the same way that an arrow fired at a target might land too short, too high, or to either side. That sounds an awful lot like a trajectory! Humans as a species are on that upward climb, and have been making progress over the past many millions of years, but as individuals and societies we just keep falling short of our full potential (which is to be like God). Christianity needs to change.  If we don’t revise our terminology, and even our theology, we may lose a whole generation of Christians; recent trends in church attendance and religious self-identification, revealed by reputable polling agencies, suggest we may be witnessing an extinction event.  But the change may go in unpredictable and truly disturbing directions.  We talked a bit about how Christian groups around the world are blending their Christian theology with other ideas and worldviews that are arguably anti-Christian (exhibit A here being Evangelicalism amalgamating with the Prosperity Gospel or Christian Nationalism).  A lot of food for thought here! As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … If you enjoyed this episode, you may also want to peruse our earlier episodes focusing on Young Earth Creationism, or our episode looking in more detail at this more scientific understanding of original sin (in contrast to the traditional theological understanding). Episode image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay (and modified). To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

A week after Easter 2024, and in response to questions from our listeners, we discuss a whole new perspective on who Jesus was, and what he gave the Jews, and the world, when he died on the cross. Several members of our private Facebook Discussion Group asked us to explain how we’ve been able to reject so much of our Evangelical faith, and yet still hold a worldview that we can call Christian. We first compared Evangelicalism to a crystalline figurine: well-crafted and beautiful, but brittle. Great to look at, but absolutely not up to being handled too roughly: if you test its limits by asking questions and entertaining certain “what if ….” scenarios, the crystalline figurine starts to fragment. And it seems that cracks always form in the exact same places for everyone who walks down this “slippery slope”: scientific challenges … Christian exclusivism …. inerrancy/infallibility ….. Penal Substitutionary Atonement and eternal conscious torment in Hell …. these are all the same fault lines that everyone finds. But Christian faith doesn’t have to take that crystalline form: there are other ways to hold a Christian faith. The concept of “God” doesn’t have to look like what you were taught in Sunday school and youth group, or by your parents. Divine interaction with humans doesn’t have to look like the stories you were told: overly literal readings from ancient Jewish texts. It is possible to completely set aside a traditional Evangelical form of faith and still have a sincere Christian faith. I gave one example: how my perspective on Easter is now completely different. My new understanding of that critical event no longer needs to be shrouded in the supernatural or superstition. The details given to us in the Gospel accounts themselves can be re-interpreted in a way that is 100% rational historically and scientifically, and yet still delivers a profoundly inspirational punch. The Easter story is a purely Jewish event. A Jewish story. When you carefully read the story of Jesus in the Gospel accounts, without imposing a modern Western Christian worldview on it, it’s all about a Jewish Messiah coming to liberate a captive nation of Israel. Not a cosmic story of blood-spilling to pay the way into an eternal bliss in heaven (and thus avoid an eternal conscious torment in hell). This is how THEY spoke about it …. how THEY saw it. Including Jesus himself, according to his own words, and the impact that his message had on his listeners. We 21st century Western/Christian people, wearing our modern Evangelical glasses, interpret many of the things that Jesus said in a way completely different from the meaning those words would have had for 1st century Jews. We talked a bit about how Jesus identified fully with the label “Son of Man,” rather than “the Son of God” (in fact, he shunned that latter label), and how this label referred to a figure in one of the prophet Daniel’s visions, a vision of a human being elevated to a new position in the courts of heaven. That said, though, it seems that even Jesus himself may not have understood the path he was taking: how/why a Jewish Messiah was supposed to capitulate to the Roman Empire and the Jewish leaders. Were these latest developments — the crucifixion especially — really part of the plan? While he was at it — preaching his Jewish Messiah message — Jesus also taught a universal message of love, liberation, sharing, getting along, seeing others as equal … even if it kills you. I can FULLY accept all of that as factual, historical, and 100% believable. And yet it’s also inspirational. As the non-believing historian Tom Holland concludes, modern Western society is founded on Christian teachings. Jesus was the inflection point in human history. Good can triumph over evil, even through passive resistance: Ghandi in 1930s in India, Martin Luther King in 1965 in Selma Alabama, and Desmond Tutu in the mid-80s, standing up to apartheid in South Africa, all took a page out of that Jesus story, and made it part of their own. Trying to bring heaven to earth. I can climb on board with that message, try to make it my own guiding principle, all without bringing in any emotional or theological baggage from my Evangelical upbringing. Even atheists and anti-theists can take that approach to the Jesus story. But then I show how it’s possible to take those steps a bit further: to run the ramp of reason before taking a leap of faith. I can meditate on that story while remaining open to greater possibilities. I’m still open to the idea of a God …. something much bigger than the Big Daddy that I learned about in my Evangelical world. And to the possibility that that something takes an interest in us, in much the same way that I might show interest in a snail crawling along a gravelly bike path, and compassionately move it off the path so it doesn’t get crushed. So maybe that higher being might have used that Jewish guy spreading a message of love and liberation, to nudge our species a bit further along on our journey up the evolutionary ladder. Why not? Because that sounds too Evangelical? Or because it sounds more rational to say that we’re completely alone in the universe? As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like Episode #82, where we talked in detail specifically about Jesus being the Jewish Messiah, or to our series of other episodes in which we build a whole new Christian worldview. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive.

Brian takes an entirely new and unexpected direction in this latest book: it’s not enough to talk about bringing heaven down to earth, we have to stop creating hell on earth. Brian MacLaren is widely recognized in the Evangelical community. In fact, in 2015, Time magazine named him one of the 25 most influential Evangelicals in America! But he’s been on a journey through Evangelicalism that whole time, and he recounts some of that history during the first few minutes of our conversation with him. He’s documented the details of that journey in his many books … over two dozen of them. If you’ve read even a few of them, especially the most recent ones, you’d be forgiven for making hasty assumptions about the subject of this next one. But I guarantee you would never have predicted this one. Life After Doom is about the coming apocalypse …. total ecological and societal collapse. As he put it: “we have created a civilization that, the more it succeeds, the faster it accelerates toward suicide … we’re sucking more resources out of the earth than it can sustain, and we’re pumping out more waste products than the earth can detoxify … we’re destroying our life support system.” After years of fact checking and careful research, he’s not sure if it’s even possible to turn our civilization around, or if the better thing is to let this one fall apart so that something better can be built in the ruins. Many experts feel it’s too late for change. Brian envisions these two major collapses — of human society, and of Earth’s ecology — interacting with each other, producing four likely outcomes: Scenario 1: Collapse Avoidance: civilization destabilizes the ecology, and ecological decline destabilizes civilization; humanity gets its act together and drops in number to a level that Earth’s ecology can sustain (~2.5 billion people); this will be a slow, painful, and costly outcome. Scenario 2: Collapse/Rebirth: civilization doesn’t learn fast enough, and essentially collapses; but the ecosystem rebounds in time for a remnant to survive and rebuild that more sustainable (and possibly even enjoyable) existence on the planet, in harmony with the planet Scenario 3: Collapse/Survival: civilization collapses, and devastates the ecosystem in the process; humanity manages to build something from the ruins, but it’s a meagre struggle for mere survival Scenario 4: Collapse/Extinction: civilization collapses and nations resort to catastrophically destructive means (total nuclear, chemical, biological war) to protect their interests in an attempt to “survive” … and completely ruin everything in the process Folks, these are not happy scenarios. Think about what happened when recent societal collapse in parts of Asia or South America sent only a few million migrants into Europe and the United States — the anti-immigrant response … forced encampment …. Fascism (in Europe) and White Supremacy (in the U.S.) — and then multiply that conflict by several thousand when not just a few million, but a few billion people are similarly affected. Brian places a lot of blame on the fossil fuel industry, for using huge amounts of money to cover up the data which predicted these outcomes decades ago, just so that they could continue to make more money. But he also says that, really, we’re all culpable for ignoring the warning signs. He uses a great analogy of a lumberjack cutting down a tree with a trunk 10 meters in diameter. As the lumberjack gets through the first half of that cutting, the tree continues to stand. Seven meters in … it’s still standing. By eight meters there’s a little bit of creaking and groaning. When the cut is just over nine meters deep, the tree gives out a couple sudden explosive warning shots that reverberate through the forest, and the worker pauses. But the tree is still standing, apparently unaffected by the deep cut. The only real sign of any damage to the tree is a small pile of sawdust accumulating beside the tree. The worker continues. But he only manages to cut for another minute or two before there is one more thunderous crack that he can feel in his chest. At this point, it’s too late. The die is now cast. There is absolutely nothing that can be done to stop the inevitable. No quick fixes will keep that tree standing. The outcome is assured. And final. In this analogy, the small pile of accumulating sawdust is the smog in our air, and the grunge in our waters. The loud thunderous cracks are the melting of the polar ice caps, the shut-down of the ocean currents, and the massive and accelerating species extinctions going on around the world. Do we really need to wait for that one last irreversible explosive warning shot before we ask whether we know what we’re doing, and whether we should maybe stop? And Brian also attributes an additional but different kind of blame on the shoulders of Evangelicals. They typically dismiss the warning signs by thinking/saying things like: “it’s all gonna’ burn, right? … Jesus is coming back and he’s just gonna’ torch the place anyway. We’re just accelerating the timeline for him.” In all honesty, that kind of thought went through my own head when I was in my Fundamentalist teen years. Evangelicals also contribute in their tunnel-visioned science denial, resistance to authority and controls, and by aligning with big money interests. Brian paints a convicting picture. The shoe does fit. But not content to just dramatize and criticize, Brian then provides four steps towards solutions. You’ll need to read the book to find out what those are. As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … Find more about Brian MacLaren’s story, his books, and upcoming appearances at his website. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like Episode #67, where we talk specifically about the Evangelical response to Climate Change, or a series of episodes dealing with Evangelical science denial. Episode image used by permission of Brian MacLaren. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

A social anthropologist, with decades of scholarship on people striving to connect to another dimension, gives us her perspective on the Evangelical version of this phenomenon. “It’s not a religion … it’s a relationship!”  Many Christians claim this is what separates their faith from all others.  There was a time when I myself made this claim.  I don’t anymore.  Not because “we broke up.”  But because, by any definition of the word “relationship” in every other context in my life, it was never there to begin with.  What I mean is, I do have many other relationships where there is a back-and-forth engagement … a sharing of presence, and even of ideas …. perceptible or even tangible exchanges.  But despite decades of sincerely trying to make any kind of connection with the Divine, I have essentially nothing to show for my efforts: any evidence that I might present to substantiate that relationship pales in comparison to the other ones I have with other people, with organizations, and even with my pets. I know I’m not alone in feeling like this. And yet others claim they have been and continue to be successful: they “hear from the Lord” and “sense his presence” all the time.   As a wannabe-Christian, it’s hard not to feel left out. We’ve already done one episode talking about this solely from our own perspective (Episode #42). In this episode, we talk to a social anthropologist — Dr. Tanya M. Luhrmann — who studied this phenomenon in detail, and wrote the book When God Talks Back: understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God (2012).  She has done numerous studies of people groups around the world who believe they have a special connection to another dimension of reality that is not usually accessible to most other people.  But it was a conversation she had with an Evangelical Christian who claimed to “have coffee with Jesus all the time” that began her in-depth study of my own in-crowd. And she noticed a recurring theme running through all those claims of spiritual experiences, whether they came from people practicing dark magic (aka: witchcraft, Wicca, Naturists) in England, or local religions in five different countries in Africa and Asia  …. or from Evangelical Christians on the western coast of the USA.  She kept hearing that it takes a lot of work and effort … that time and practice changes you and makes it easier … and that some people are better at it than others. It seems that Christians aren’t the only ones who have a proverbial “prayer warrior” in their midst!? And she wasn’t just watching all these practitioners from a distance.  She entered their worlds, went to their meetings, practiced the rituals with them, and got to know them on a personal level.  And she did find that doing so began to change her … to alter how she thought, her experiences, her sense of reality. She saw visions, and felt “warm fuzzies”!? Our conversation covered a wide variety of points: she grew up in a diversified religious context (Baptist; Fundamentalist Evangelicals; Christian Science; conservative Judaism), but does not claim any religious affiliation of her own she not only observed druids & witches in England, but she immersed herself in their world, and learned their rituals and beliefs much of their training involved focused meditation, envisioning things happening, and imagining the sensations that accompanied those happenings; as she practiced this, she felt she was being changed inwardly, that she was seeing the world through new eyes (sometimes literally …. she recounts one vision of druids appearing in her backyard); for me, it was uncanny how much this all sounded like Ignatian prayer, which many Christians practice are some people just wired differently in order to have these experiences? can we adjust our brain’s wiring through mental practices (have you ever heard of cognitive behavioral therapy?) her work with Evangelical Christians in USA “having coffee with Jesus” …. “imagining that Jesus is right there” … setting an empty chair for Jesus at the dinner table she spoke of their meditative/prayer practices, which were, again, very much like Ignatian prayer she remarked again how often she heard the same phrases from the Evangelical Christians that she heard in her earlier studies with the Wiccans: “it takes a lot of time and effort (going to worship services, weekly study groups, practice at home) … it takes work and dedication … some people are better at it than others … people who practice a lot, they change.”  the Jesus movement of the 70s and 80s: people giving up LSD for speaking in tongues this tendency to develop a spiritual/religious paradigm seems to be a universally human phenomenon.  Is it an adapted trait?  What might be the evolutionary advantage? Is it a mechanism for gaining a feeling of control over a scary world?  Or is it because we humans are such social animals that the concept of “God” serves as a social bonding agent. humans have evolved a tendency to see Agency everywhere (the “Hyperactive Agency Detection System” that we talked about in Episode #78).  psilocybin mushrooms provide a comparable religious experience Luke then asked Dr. Luhrmann for her expert opinion on his new understanding of why some Christians might claim to have those “God moments.”  After spending so much time and effort in prayer, meditation, going to weekly meetings (or even multiple times per week) and actively looking for a spiritual connection with the Divine, they’re essentially curating an ever-expanding database of experiences, and are then developing cognitive skills aimed at looking for ways to “connect the dots.”  Through confirmation bias, and massaging the data, and loosening the boundaries around certain words and ideas, it becomes easier to find ways to connect those dots.  A somewhat crude analogy is the “Texas Sharp-shooter Fallacy”: someone who sprays dozens of rounds into the side of a distant barn, then paints a bulls-eye around the densest concentration of bullet holes … and then claims to be a sniper. As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … Find more about Dr. Tanya Luhmann at her personal webpage or her institution’s faculty page, and these links to her book When God Talks Back: understanding the American evangelical relationship with God (2012) and her more recent one How God Becomes Real: kindling the presence of invisible others (2022). If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like our first episode on the “personal relationship” that Christians claim to have (or not have), or our episode on prayer, or a series of episodes on the neurobiology and psychology underlying spiritual experiences. Episode image used by permission. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Explore the evolution of the concept of Hell across different religious beliefs, from ancient Hebrews to modern Evangelicals. Discuss the trauma caused by the fear of eternal torment and the pushback faced by those questioning traditional beliefs. Dive into the pastor's journey towards purgatorial universalism and the redemptive interpretation of Hell as a refining process. Delve into the transformative power of purgation and the upcoming project on Christianity and politics.

David Morris, with a PhD in psychology and theology, tells us about the psychology behind forming a spiritual/religious worldview, and then rejecting that worldview, and the mourning process that follows. In this episode, we talk to Dr. David Morris, who holds a PhD in psychology and in theology, worked for one of the largest publishers of Christian books (Zondervan), and is now starting up his own publishing business. David first gave us his personal story of growing up in a very Evangelical home (Southern Baptist), but ended up giving up almost everything he believed …. twice! Once after coming through university, and encountered a number of intellectual assaults on his faith, from which he reconstructed a very different (more liberal) Christian faith. The second time, though, was more a result of religious abuse, from which he’s still recovering. Having his doctorate in both psychology and theology, he had to process the wide range of emotions he was going through as he deconstructed and deconverted … again, twice. Fear, anger, grief, betrayal, …. as well as peace, release, and a new understanding of himself. David then talked to us in detail about the psychology behind the formation of a world view and belief system, as well as the psychology behind leaving both of those. We covered a wide range of topics, all related to the first half of his book — Psychology of disillusionment, mourning and a return of hope — in which he gives a foundational understanding of the history, sociology and psychology of a theology: sociological surveys Sigmund Freud the Jesus movement of the 70s and 80s America founded by Fundamentalists; Canada founded by French/Catholics, and then by British/Protestants Fowler’s Faith Stage Theory …. religious/spiritual formation parallels cognitive/behavioral/psychological development from childhood to independent adult Erik Erikson … the interaction between self and society; famous for coining phrase “identity crisis” how we need safe spaces to explore spirituality and religious world views the fifth chapter of his book: longest one in the book (2-3 times longer than the other ones) is all about mourning the loss of faith Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief (denial; anger; bargaining; depression; acceptance) Freud’s mourning versus melancholia diffusing the negative emotional energy of painful memories, and then reinvesting that in/with something new getting “stuck” in a certain stage of development (Erikson/Fowler) or of grieving (Freud/Kübler-Ross) Melanie Klein and “pining” for something new after the grieving of leaving something old In the second half of his book, David devotes a chapter to each of six different individuals: people in many respects much like any one of us (in other words, not prominent leaders or personalities) who went through a convoluted, complex, difficult spiritual journey that involved at least one re-formation of their worldview and spirituality. I’m sure the listeners will relate personally to at least one of these six people (I particularly related to Randall … giving up the faith of his father). In each chapter, David applies the psychosocioanalytical tools described in the first half of the book. One of several threads that ran through all six stories? … it’s a long process or journey, lasting decades. At the end of our conversation, we asked David about the subtitle of his book, particularly the phrase: “… and a return of hope.” What is this hope? His answer ….. coming alive to life, finding things that bring you joy that you can connect to …. becoming a whole person, and being able to ask all the questions you want to ask and finding a space to talk about those things … community again! As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … You can find more about Dr. David Miller at his personal webpage, or the one for his publishing business (Lake Drive Books), and his blog page. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like ones we’ve done before on the neurobiology of the spiritual experience and on spiritual/religious abuse (seven to choose from here). Episode images used by permission from Dr. David Morris. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive